Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term as president on Monday, after being on a very long and varied list of campaign promises last year.
And if you think he plans to keep them, does he have a southern border wall to sell you!
Because just as Trump's most infamous promise during his first presidential campaign in the White House — “Mexico will pay for the wall” — became a running, sad joke about how openly dishonest he is, the former and future president will surely repeat every promise abandon. as soon as it no longer suits his ambitions.
How can we tell? Because it's already happening.
American voters usually have to wait until politicians come to power before breaking their campaign promises. But not with Trump. He is already there, discarding his past promises, as if he has debts he never intended to pay.
Remember when Trump promised to lower your grocery bills?
Former President Donald Trump in New York City, on September 6, 2024.
Think about inflation. The price of supermarket products such as eggs and bacon were common complaints as Trump sought support at campaign rallies. He knows. He brags about it.
“I won on messages,” Trump said last month on NBC News' “Meet The Press,” just 33 days after winning the November election.
That echoed a signature promise Trump made during his campaign in August, when he repeatedly told a crowd in North Carolina that he would “swiftly lower prices” at grocery stores on the day he is sworn in.
That's another day. How does that work?
Here's what he had to say to Time Magazine on December 12, in response to a question about whether his presidency would be a failure if he doesn't lower prices.
'I don't think so. Look, they busted them,” Trump said. “I'd like to take them down. It's hard to take things down once they're up. You know, it's very difficult.'
Keeping campaign promises is difficult for any politician. Breaking it is easy for Trump.
Trump has vowed to lower your gas prices. Do you think he will keep that promise?
Supreme, Plus, Regular petrol at the gas station pump
And what about the petrol price? Trump promised in September as president to get the price of a gallon of gasoline under $2, during a speech in which he announced that Elon Musk would lead a new government commission to cut costs, now known as the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE .
But Trump's looming trade war with Canada could actually drive up gas prices. And his claim that he will lower gas prices by encouraging more domestic oil drilling – with the simple slogan “drill baby drill” – has always been offset by the inescapable fact that America al drill more for oil then ever for.
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday issued a short-term energy outlook that predicts gasoline will average $3.20 per gallon this year and $3 per gallon in 2026, down 10 cents from last year, but still nowhere near $2 (or less). .)
It's been a while since you heard Trump promise gas for less than $2 a gallon, right? That's usually a strong sign that he's walking away from a promise.
Elon Musk has already delivered on his big Trumpian promises
Speaking of unreliable: Musk is now backtracking on DOGE promises and serving as a proxy for Trump's broken promises.
Musk, in a warm-up for Trump's campaign rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in October, said he could find “at least $2 trillion” to cut the federal budget, drawing cheers from the crowd.
That's a big promise. And it makes it easier to understand why Trump and Musk have formed a society of mutual admiration. Breaking promises is as easy for Musk as it is for Trump.
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Musk cut his pledge in half on Jan. 8, announcing that he thinks DOGE has “a good chance” of cutting nearly $1 trillion from the federal budget.
I think if you're ranked as the richest person in the world, the difference between “at least $2 trillion” and “a good chance of getting $1 (trillion)” is just a rounding error. And if you bought Musk's bed, you also made a mistake.
The war in Ukraine shows no signs of ending, despite what Trump promised
I wrote last month about how Trump went back on a campaign promise that he would end the war that started when Russia invaded Ukraine before he was sworn into office.
His inauguration is Monday. There are no signs that the war will end anytime soon. Trump said last month, limping, “I'm going to try” when asked if he could make that happen before he was sworn in.
Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who was appointed special envoy to Ukraine and Russia by Trump in late November, said in a Fox News interview last week that he wants to take “100 days” to see if they ” We can figure out a way to do this on short notice.”
So not before day 1. And not on day 1. But maybe on day 101. But maybe not.
Trump is not known for keeping promises. Expect this to continue.
The past is prologue when it comes to Trump's promises.
PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, tracked 102 promises Trump made during his 2016 campaign and found that he had broken 53% of them, kept 23% and compromised on 22%.
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This ranged from big problems to small things. Recall that Trump, an avid golfer known for owning several golf courses and cheating at the game, repeatedly said in 2016 that as president he would be far too busy to click the links.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post in January 2021 extrapolated from Trump's trips to his golf courses that he likely played 261 rounds as president, or every 5.6 days in that term. Trump's White House has not released a full accounting, but television cameras caught him taking courses again and again.
We can't trust Trump on trivial things like golf — and you really shouldn't trust him when he claims how many shots he's taken in a round — so there's no reason to expect him to deliver on any campaign promise now . Monday or in the next four years.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump to inaugurate amid a trail of broken promises | Opinion
